"ZEN" startup-screen freezes

[Titus]

Dear all,

edit:
Just two quick things:
I mistook the "ok" button for the pause/play.
So recovery mode worked, and i did cleanup and reboot.
Now the zen started up. So problem solved? No! because I'm still having many troubles like crashes(resolvable with the reset) and sudden Power off's(also when deleting files or adding)
Could you please read the things below and explain what I did wrong and how to treat my zen otherwise, If been carefull but had only problems from the start, perhaps a bad batch?
Thanks:
Edit 2:

WTF is going on, had a crash again, resetted, rebuilded, to find al kinds of pictures from my hard drive been uploaded, playlist from WMP, different photo's from my PC, still havind doubles!
HELP
Then I plugged my zen in the USB again, he kept starting up, showed creative 5 times, then zen 2 times, then creative and zen after eachother 4 times, then i unplugged
HELP?!
Old message:

After hours of researching, I've grown desperate:

when i turn my zen on, it says: creative,
and then it says ZEN, like always. Only the zen screen stays on for ever, not working when plugged into USB either.
When I reset, and turn it on again(or plug into USB) same thing happens,
When I try the recovery mode, same thing.
See below for more information
Please help.

Thanks

I own my zen for half a week now, struggled with Album art a lot, fixed it with media monkey, uploaded it, worked.
Today I saw that my music was on it twice, because of WMP sync.
that half had no album art, so i figgured out which half to delete and deleted it(also saw strange file names, like "BO"(which was the "i want you" song from bob dylan, no extension, nothing.
Then i (safely) unplugged my zen, and had the problemfor he first time.

Thanks,

P.S. i had quite a few crashes, and my friend had none(he already owns his player a year or so) what am I doing wrong?
Titus

[CrowdAds]

[Awesome Man 990]

Oh gosh, I had almost the exact same problem with my old V plus. All the advice I can offer from expierience is DON'T PRESS RESART A MILLION TIMES IF IT DOESN'T WORK THE FIRST RESTART!! It makes a little white light come on, which is the point of no return, basically. So be careful, and hope the problem dissapates for u.

[Titus]

How did you solve it? I'll stop pressing the reset button.
Is a format whise?
I own this zen less then a week, so if anything goes wrong i should be able to get a new one...?

[BobbyRS]

Hello Titus. Welcome. It sounds it would be best to just do a Format from within Recovery Mode. It may accomplish two things here. One, it will help with getting rid of all of you duplicate mixed files and allow you to start fresh again. Two, it may correct any possible file system issues that you may be having. I would also recommend that you make sure you are running the latest firmware version as well to get the most stable firmware for your Zen. If those do not help, then yes I would consider returning your Zen for a replacement.

[Titus]

I'm running: v1.21.01_0.3.1 according to the recovery mode,(is that this firmware:
Creative ZEN Firmware 1.21.01e (For Europe Only) (17.60 MB) 28 Feb 08
I'm in The Netherlands by the way, so european firmware(sound is loud enough!!)
Should I reinstall the firmware?

Thanks

Titus

[Awesome Man 990]

Yea, I agree with Bobby. Like, where did u get all ur tunes? If it's not the most trustworthy source, then it might be a corrupted or duplicated file gone screwy. Just watch out, cuz unless you bought some sort of warranty or there is one that came with it, then they won't accept it.

[BobbyRS]

You are running the latest firmware. It may be worth a shot to reinstall, but I would do so after you have done the Format (remember a format will erase all files) to see if it helped or not.

[Titus]

Well, things are nicely covered here in the netherlands, the local supplier should help me out.
wel, all of my tunes are mp3's or wav's(from cd's)
And having no problem on my pc!

what are smart volume and bass boost?
does it matter in what sub folder's the music files are, matter for anything?

@awsome man 990(bad timing= ??? ?)

[Titus]

Originally Posted by BobbyRS

You are running the latest firmware. It may be worth a shot to reinstall, but I would do so after you have done the Format (remember a format will erase all files) to see if it helped or not.

Sorry for Double Posting,
But a firmware reinstall, is just running the firmware setup, although it is not nesacery(how do you write that?), or through the recovery mode something?
which methode should I use,

3 questions:
what are smart volume and bass boost?
does it matter in what sub folder's the music files are, matter for anything?
Where do I get the Old Zen Pictures like scenery and nature(I liked them!!!), because afther he format they are gone

My zen seems to work, I'll get back to this topic when I'm having troubles again(or when i'm having your awnsers on these 3 questions, or when i'm having more questions)
Sorry for being uhm, perhaps dumb, but THANK you very much for all the help, If you ever need me to help with something, like adding my name in a list with ideas for zen to upgrade(yep creative, if your reading this there are things which HAVE to change, *cough* hint *cough*)

Thanks

Titus

[Awesome Man 990]

Smart volume pretty much tones down the volume to where it will cause less wear and tear on your ears. Bass boost is the slight increase in the bass part of a song: for example, the bass guitar, bass drum, the heavy"BVM, BVM BBOOOM" in a lot of todays rap songs(sorry for the crappy example) Im betting that u can go to the creative website and see where they got their pics, if not then i dunno. And im not the guy to ask about the sub folder thing. Sorry. Hope it helps!

[BobbyRS]

what are smart volume and bass boost?

Smart Volume is basically a feature of normalizing the volume during playback so that each track has the same volume level. Since Smart Volume is normalizing the playback, it should help reduce clipping (distortion).

Bass Boost basically emphasizes low frequencies (like bass) within the music.

does it matter in what sub folder's the music files are, matter for anything?

No, the ZVm won't really care if the files are within folders. It will read all the files within the main Music section by their ID3 tag information and not their file/folder structure.

But a firmware reinstall, is just running the firmware setup, although it is not nesacery(how do you write that?), or through the recovery mode something?

Upgrading can be done either way. Basically executing the downloaded file after connecting your Zen when booted normally will overwrite the existing firmware. Doing so from within Recovery Mode will erase the currently installed firmware first before having you connect it to the computer to execute the firmware for reinstallation. This is a fail-safe method for reinstalling firmware on ZVM's that have corrupt firmware causing issues carrying over to new firmware installs.

which methode should I use,

It would be best to do so from within Recovery Mode, but you need to make sure you have a good connection (Creative firmware program see's the ZVM) with the computer first (while booted into Recovery Mode). That way you don't run into connection/detection issues before attempting to reinstall the firmware.

Where do I get the Old Zen Pictures like scenery and nature(I liked them!!!), because afther he format they are gone

Try this thread.

My zen seems to work, I'll get back to this topic when I'm having troubles again(or when i'm having your awnsers on these 3 questions, or when i'm having more questions)

What happened?

nesacery(how do you write that

Necessary

THANK you very much for all the help

No problem.

[Titus]

So Smart volume should be on?

Well, My zen seems to work again, after I formatted trough recovery.

Now I have one problem:
The albums without album art(where things all started, albumart) now all have the same album art(just one of my other albums), and I hate that:
I'm looking for abbey road for example(which is one of my albums and aswell the picture for albums without art) and there are multiple!:!:!??!?!


So I tried deleting my music map on my zen(a map caled music in the zen's music map)
Crashes, reset zen, rebuilding, Music gone . But still the crash, why is that!

then I deleted the folder.jpg(which was the abbeyroad album picture) and added my music in small steps,

That seems to work, updating this message when i'm done

Thanks

[BobbyRS]

So Smart volume should be on?

If you want it to be on. I never use it, but then again my MP3's are all created with a good bitrate and normalized with software.

Well, My zen seems to work again, after I formatted trough recovery.

Good to hear!

Keep in mind the Zen utilizes Album Art embedded into the ID3 tag and not by using .jpg files. See the Zen FAQ for more info and the main Album Art and ID3 Tags sticky thread.